Every Breathing Thing

Picture a room with instrument cases open on the floor: a trumpet, a psaltery and a harp, a timbrel, stringed instruments, pipes, which the KJV calls organs, and two sets of cymbals. One set is called loud and the other high sounding, as if one set would never be enough.

Psalm 150 is six verses long, and it is carefully ordered. It says where to praise: "in his sanctuary," and "in the firmament of his power," which means the wide sky. It says why: "praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness." It says how: with all the instruments at once, and with dancing. And it says who: "every thing that hath breath." Then come the last words of the whole book of Psalms: "Praise ye the LORD."

That last call is wider than it looks. Psalm 148, two psalms earlier, has already called on dragons and the deeps, fire and hail, snow and vapours. It has called on creeping things and flying birds, kings and judges, old men and children. So "every thing that hath breath" is the last item on a list that stopped being only about the choir long ago. And remember which book ends here. This is the book that holds Psalm 88, which ends with no word of hope at all. It holds Psalm 22, which opens by asking God why He has forsaken the man singing it. Nothing hard was taken out of the book to make room for the cymbals.

Breath is the only requirement for joining in, and you have it, or you could not be reading this. The praise of God has never been waiting for you to improve, or for your mood to lift, or for a better year than the one you are having. It goes on in the weather and the sea and the brass. Your part in it is the next breath you take. So let the last words of the book be spoken over you, right where you are sitting: "Praise ye the LORD."

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 283 is No Condemnation (Romans 8:1).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two